<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>all that i need by taylortot</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703493">all that i need</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylortot/pseuds/taylortot'>taylortot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the way i love you [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, Soft Keith (Voltron), they're SO IN LOVE UR HONOR</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:01:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,928</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703493</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylortot/pseuds/taylortot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>in which keith asks a question</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keith/Lance (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the way i love you [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1189551</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>618</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Soft _sensational _klance</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all that i need</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>The cabin is Lance’s idea. It is untouched by the war, timeless in it’s silence, located on a shining lake that glows beneath the moonlight. The smell of pine trees is thick in the air, fresh and green and lovely beyond comparison. Lance has been stunned by the potency of it since they got there, and sometimes, Keith will catch him with fluttering eyes as he takes a deep breath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The wrap around porch for the tiny cabin is screened to keep out the mosquitoes, and because the outside lights won’t turn on, Lance has propped open the front door to let a yellow block of light from the kitchen slice over a section of the uneven floorboards. Fireflies glow in the shadows of the trees around the property, off-beat and soundless, graceful even. The air is sticky and hot, but it does nothing to create space between them. Nearby, Kosmo is sprawled out, dozing on a threadbare rug faded with age.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance has got an arm tossed carelessly around Keith’s shoulders as Keith leads him in a sort of an awkward sway-step-step-sway to the fuzzy music coming from the portable radio on the window sill. In truth, Lance is much better at this than Keith is, but he seems to enjoy it nonetheless, especially when Keith mumbles some of the words under his breath. Lance’s smile widens, the apples of his cheeks bright, as Keith presses the words into his skin like little drops of rain, soaking him through with affection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s kind of perfect. It may be their last night of leave, but Keith has been looking forward to it for weeks. Ever since he had that conversation with Lance’s mom at the McClain farmhouse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” he’d said, approaching her during the family reunion with his hands tucked into his pockets. The golden ring there seemed to burn against his palm as he closed a fist over it and fought against the bitter crest of vulnerability that threatened to break over him. He’d never spoken about his feelings with anyone at length other than Lance, but he knew he had to do this, if he wanted to do it right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d smiled so easily at him, like she’d known. His heart was beating so loud in his chest he wonders now if she could hear it. “Of course, Keith. Let’s go outside, it’s a beautiful day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mrs. McClain led him to one of the wicker couches on the porch and sat down, patting the cushion beside her as she held her coffee in her other hand. Keith withdrew his hands from his pockets, clenched around that ring as the nerves strangled him and took the invitation to sit. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance’s mother took a sip of her coffee and fixed him with a pleasant look. “What’s on your mind, mijo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith took a moment to collect his thoughts so that he could articulate them properly. Each word he said from then on out would carry an irreversible weight to them. They ought to be treated with care. “I love Lance,” Keith said, and all of his nerves disappeared.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mrs. McClain smiled at him, one elbow up on the back rest as she turned towards him, her expression softening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Words had never been his strong point but he was determined to try. This was Lance’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>mother</span>
  </em>
  <span>, one of the most important people in his life, a person who had shaped him into who he is, a person who loved him selflessly and fully and endlessly. He wanted her to know more than anyone else how much he loved her son, that he loved Lance the way he deserved to be loved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is my best friend,” Keith told her, a bit clunky in his delivery, but earnest. “All I want to do is make him happy; that is my one and only priority. I don’t care about anything else.” He took a deep breath and then held up the ring so that she could see it, fingers slowly unfurling to show it nestled into his palm. The sunlight caught on it like a diamond. “Your opinion matters to him more than anyone’s. It’s the only reason I waited so long to ask him...I just want to do it right. So I--I want to ask you for your blessing to marry him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a split moment, all he could think was that he hadn’t considered rejection and that maybe he should have, but when he looked up from the ring to gauge Mrs. McClain’s reaction, he found her teary eyed, reaching for his face to tuck a lock of his hair back behind his ear. Krolia loved him, he knew, but she was Galra and he’d grown up human and he’d never been so tenderly touched by a mother before. It shocked him into silence as she rested her hand on his cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not worry about him while he was gone this time,” she told him gently, “because I knew that you were with him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith felt suddenly choked by emotion, and he could tell that she noticed. Her smile softened a little more around the edges and she smoothed her thumb over the slope of his cheekbone. Her eyes were so much like Lance’s, blue and honest, and he felt, immediately, like she knew him better than he realized. She was telling the truth as it was—not for his benefit at all, but just because it was a matter of fact. It made his heart ache with happiness, even as his breaths fluttered shallow in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know that he is safe with you,” she said. “I know that he is loved. You know, Keith, that is all a mother can ask for.” She dropped her hand to hold her coffee mug with both of them now. “I could not give my blessing to anyone but you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rush of gratitude, of knowing her steadfast faith in him most assuredly, was almost too much to bear. He was light. He was air. He could have shouted! He could have sang! Keith had nearly barged back into the house just to ask Lance to marry him right then and there, plans be damned. He almost couldn’t imagine waiting one second longer, but time was finally on their side. He folded under the security of her trust, unable to keep from smiling as his eyes stung with tears, heart leaping gleefully in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” he said fervently, his voice warm and full as daylight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Keith, thank </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Her smile shone, though she still looked on the verge of tears herself. “Look at the way you love him,” she said as he laughed a little and brushed at his eyes with the knuckle of his thumb. “You are so sweet. My, my, Lance is a very lucky boy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sweet.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Keith felt too happy to be embarrassed, though the word threaded through him unexpectedly. “I’m the lucky one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sipped at her coffee again, said, “I’m glad you think so,” and Keith laughed once more, tucking the ring back into his pocket. After that, they’d sat on the porch and fell into cordial conversation until Lance wandered out with Kosmo hot on his heels, unreserved when he plopped himself down on Keith’s lap like he owned it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on out here?” he asked playfully as he slung an arm around Keith’s neck, looking to him for an answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just catching up,” Keith told him, truthfully now, and without Lance looking in her direction, Mrs. McClain gave Keith a conspiratorial wink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s been a few weeks since. He’s been content in this bubble, but he doesn’t want to go back to the Garrison tomorrow without having clearly expressed his intentions with Lance. That had been the plan all along, after all. He’s sure that Lance is waiting on it. On him. He can feel it like a change in the weather, winter giving way to spring, or like a shadow, growing steadily more tangible in the golden twilight of this homecoming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Careful, Kogane,” Lance says now. He says it softly. He says it like he doesn’t want Keith to be careful at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith feels himself smile and presses it into the cloud of Lance’s curly hair. He’s never smiled more in his life than he has the past few weeks with Lance back on Earth. Lance had made a joke about it the other day—something about how Keith’s face was gonna get stuck like that if he didn’t stop smiling. Couldn’t make Keith stop if he tried, though. “What did I do this time?” Keith asks as they keep stepping and swaying to the fuzzy music. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You almost stepped on my foot,” Lance explains, but Keith can also feel his smile against his neck. “Mr. Two Left Feet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Somehow I don’t think you’re that upset about it,” Keith says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance hums like he’s considering that and then presses forward unexpectedly to give Keith a kiss up against his jawline. “What makes you say that?” Lance whispers there, leaning more heavily on Keith’s chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You like being better than me at something,” Keith says with a deep sense of amusement, laying his temple against Lance’s and fluttering his eyes closed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance laughs a little, maybe because Keith knows him so well. And then he laughs harder when Keith pulls away and dips him unexpectedly. “Hey, I’m better than you at a lot of things!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are,” Keith agrees immediately with a grin, and the sheer scale of his emotion—the joy that has made a home out of him—has him drawing Lance in close again. That ring feels so heavy in his pocket. The words sit on the tip of his tongue. He wonders why he is still trying to keep them from spilling out. Lance’s anticipation quivers around him, against him—he’s waiting for something. He’s waiting for Keith. He knows what’s going to happen tonight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith doesn’t want to disappoint him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want a list,” Lance says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course you do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance’s eyes sparkle with mirth. “Well?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You dance better than me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve already established this!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have better aim with a gun,” Keith tells him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Obviously.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re better at being obnoxious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At that, Lance yells in indignation, but it almost immediately dissolves into more laughter when Keith’s answering smile is a little cheeky, and crooked. “That,” Lance insists, poking at Keith’s chest, “doesn’t count.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their swaying and stepping comes to a slow halt. Keith reaches up to stroke some of Lance’s sweaty fringe back from his face, to tuck a baby curl back around the cup of his ear. He tracks all of his movements with commitment, determined to brand every last second of his moment into his memory. His tongue burns with the words he wants to say. “But I like you like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance leans into his touch, his playfulness waning under Keith’s tender attention. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you like that,” Keith says, suddenly soft. Emotion seems to be welling up in his chest like a crescendo to a particularly moving piece of music, building and building and building, a longing so potent it aches. Lance is beautiful where he stands, his hair messy, freckles more prominent than ever before, his blue eyes like sapphires in the darkness. Keith imagines how Lance will look in ten years, twenty years--fifty years. Gray-haired, face lined with years of laughter. How much more beautiful he will be, how much more precious. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You understand me better,” Keith continues, stroking Lance’s hair again, slow and thorough, fierce and gentle all at once. “You have made me want to be a better person. You have taught me how to stay and fight for things that mean something to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance’s eyes widen as Keith releases him, steps back, takes his hand. The expression on his face is two parts startled and one part flustered disbelief. He can practically hear the way Lance’s heart jumps in his chest from here. “Keith--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith swallows the tight ball of emotion in his throat, and lets the music in his chest carry him as he drops to one knee. The words fall from him freely, ardent and unabashed. “Lance, there is--there is no one in this universe who can fall for you in just the same way I have. The way I will every single day of my life. I love your strengths. I love your flaws. You are so perfect, to me.” He looks briefly away from Lance’s wet, wide-eyed expression to press a devoted kiss to his knuckles, swallowing hard, wondering if Lance can feel the tremble of his hands. “There has never been anyone else for me, but you. Let me take care of you. Let me make you happy. Let me be yours. Marry me, Lance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reaches back into his pocket and pulls out the band, holds it tight between his thumb and forefinger, Lance’s hand in his, and he watches as a couple of really big, fat tears roll out of the corner of Lance’s eyes and slide over his flushed cheeks. The corners of his mouth are twitching like he’s holding back a sob. Keith’s heart is pounding so hard, pulse hammering away in his ears, and it strikes him how fucking gorgeous Lance looks right now. Overcome with happiness, glistening with it, glowing with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pride blooms bright and hot in Keith’s chest as Lance drops to his knees in front of Keith, takes Keith by the back of his neck with both hands, and kisses him like the world is ending. Or beginning. Somewhere in the background, Kosmo has been roused from his nap and is barking as if in celebration. Gripping the ring solidly in one hand, he wraps both arms around Lance and pulls him even closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that a yes?” Keith asks breathlessly, teasingly, against Lance’s pink and lovely mouth. He tastes like salt and heat. He sticks one hand into Keith’s hair and presses their foreheads together. The air is so humid and their skin is so sticky but none of that seems to matter at all right now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Lance whispers, like he still hasn’t caught his own breath. “Fuck, I love you so much.” He gives Keith another big kiss.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I put your ring on you?” Keith asks, less teasing this time, heart shivering at the thought of his ring on Lance’s finger. At the thought that it will be there forever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Lance breathes again, after another kiss and then maybe one more. “Okay, yeah--” He pulls away just enough to get his left hand up between them. “Please do, sorry, I’m--I totally knew you were gonna pop any day now but--Jesus Christ, babe. Oh my god, I gotta call so many people tonight!</span>
  <em>
    <span> Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I love you </span>
  <em>
    <span>so much</span>
  </em>
  <span>--!!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Keith laughs, vibrant as stained glass in the sun, as he slips the ring onto Lance’s finger and kisses the fresh trail of tears on his cheek. Both of them take a moment to look down at it, crowded together there on the floor. Despite its simplicity, it sparkles where the light hits it, and Keith holds Lance even tighter against him when he hears Lance try and choke away another sob. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you crying so much for, baby?” Keith whispers as Kosmo pads up to them, wagging his tail, licking at Lance’s other tear-stained cheek. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance’s laugh is thick, snarled in his throat, but he gives Kosmo a scratch behind his ears and looks at Keith. “It’s just--I mean, I’m just </span>
  <em>
    <span>so happy</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I’ve always--even back when we barely knew each other I had feelings for you, Keith. I’ve struggled so much, with my own emotions and with, like, feeling like I’m not enough. But I’ve </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> been enough for you. And for you to love me, like this....For you to want me this much--” His voice breaks and his eyes glimmer with more tears that Keith does his best to brush away with the pad of his thumb. “I wish I could tell you what it means to me. How you make me feel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hearing Lance speak about himself like this has Keith nearly on the verge of tears himself, suddenly. He pets Kosmo too as the wolf snuggles into them happily. He kisses Lance’s forehead at the arch of his brow, and lingers there, eyebrows furrowed, for a long moment. “I know enough,” Keith tells him softly when he pulls away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lance sighs, and it’s the happiest sound Keith has ever heard, and then Lance is cupping his face and kissing him with slow and fervent attention, mouth open and wet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keith,” Lance whispers gently, holding himself close to Keith, foreheads pressed together again, eyes shut, noses touching cheeks. “I don’t want a long engagement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay.” The request is easy to comply with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kosmo snuggles in closer now, too, his tail still thumping periodically against the floor. Keith holds Lance tight with one arm around his waist, another around Kosmo’s back. The music is still playing in the background, the cicadas singing and buzzing somewhere out there in the dark. Keith takes a slow, deep breath, taking note of every detail of this moment from the whisper of a breeze blowing through the screens to the cool slice of the ring on his cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He notes, and remembers, and loves, and then he presses his mouth to Lance’s once more.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>they're so happy and so in love and they're gonna get MARRIED fuck ;A; i'm gonna go cry for like 5 years now u don't know how many times i had to hold back tears while i was writing this over the course of the *checks calendar* past 5 months. lmao</p><p>two very specific songs inspired me on this fic:<br/>nothing really matters (piano version) by gabrielle aplin<br/>you &amp; me by james tw</p><p>thank you for reading &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>